


First Words

by irisbleufic



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brotherhood, Brothers, Childhood, Children, Gen, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-01
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's the first of his many secrets that you'll keep.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Words

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted to LJ in April of 2011.

_Such a frightening child_ , you hear one of Mummy's nurses say. _He doesn't cry_.

You don't know if Sherlock made a sound during the delivery, but from what Father had explained of what a _Caesarian section_ is, you would have a hard time believing he didn't. Mummy is fast asleep, damp dark curls plastered to her forehead, and Sherlock is quiet and wide-eyed in her arms.

 _He doesn't make eye contact, either_ , whispers the other nurse, and Father frowns.

You curl Sherlock's tiny fingers around your thumb while the adults converse quietly in the far corner of the room, and, sure enough, his eyes focus briefly on yours. It's the first of his many secrets that you'll keep.

Several days later, after the respiratory infection sets in, you anxiously watch the fretful kicks of Sherlock's skinny legs inside the incubator as the doctor slips a needle in his hand. After a minute, you shout _Stop! Stop!_ and bang against the glass as Father tries to restrain you. _He's choking! Stop!_

You learn the phrase _penicillin allergy_. It's the first of many times you'll save your brother's life.

In the weeks following, you learn how to feed Sherlock when Mummy hurts too much to do anything but sleep. You correct Father when he holds the bottle at the wrong angle. You learn how to burp Sherlock, soothe his colic, and change his nappies. You learn that your scratchy efforts on the violin you found in the attic somehow lull him to sleep.

Sherlock still won't look at anyone but you, and you still won't tell a soul. He doesn't cry, but he whimpers. Once, he even smiled when you spilled formula down his chin, made a hiccup like a laugh. He stretched out his hand and touched your mouth, and you laughed, too.

Father and the doctor still say there's something wrong. When Sherlock is six months old, you begin to hear terms like _partially deaf_ and _autistic_ and _doesn't fit any known profile_. You know that Sherlock can hear; he reacts to the sound of your footfalls when you enter the nursery. You do some sneaky reading in Father's study and decide that autism is a possibility, but that it's too early to tell. As for what profile he fits, you know better than they do.

Sherlock is _Sherlock_.

At eight months, he begins responding to voices and making eye contact with others. It's not that he'd been unable, you conclude; it's that he'd been too busy paying attention to other things. Birdsong and the screech of tyres out the window. The movement of pedestrians in the busy streets of London. Your hands as they sign to him slowly and carefully, just in case.

You borrow a set of alphabet flashcards from your school library and spend your afternoons (assignments are boring; you finish them while your teacher rambles on) showing the flashcards to Sherlock, explaining each letter's sound and function. He watches, clear-eyed and silent, but he never says a thing. He'll touch the cards, even pick them up and study them, but that's it.

You hold him all night when the police ring with news of Father's death in a road accident, shield him from Mummy's sobbing. You swallow your own tears and wonder how much Sherlock really knows. _Enough_ , his restless fingers in your hair seem to say.

Mummy heals just like she healed after the surgery that brought Sherlock into the world, because she's strong. She moves the crib into your bedroom and reads to you both at night.

When the weather is nice, Mummy takes you to the park, where Sherlock tastes everything within reach, but never the same thing twice. You find twigs, a bottle cap, and a sun-bleached bird skull down one of his socks when you put him to bed. He is almost two years old.

Grand-maman comes over a few times a week and helps with Sherlock and the flashcards. He smiles and laughs rarely, but still won't speak. On separate occasions, he arranges the cards to spell _NO_ and _WHY_ , but you can't decide whether or not it's coincidence. His third birthday approaches.

Sherlock's first word, when it finally arrives, takes everyone by surprise.

Mummy and Grand-maman are watching the news on telly, and you're on the floor with Sherlock, patiently reviewing the flashcards. _I_ , you say. _J, K, L—_

 _My_ , Sherlock says, snatching the next card off the pile. _Mycroft_.

Surprises everyone, that is, except for you.


	2. Homecoming

It's the first of May, and her sons are coming home.

Home, to them, is a small, shining island: green and cool and fragile. She understands the charm of England better than most; after all, she'd been lured there by the promise of an education finer than the country of her birth could offer (or at least her father had thought so, much to her mother's fury; she'd got an earful for turning up her nose at the Sorbonne). She'd met her husband at Oxford, and they'd begun to raise their boys in London. And then, one fine morning—

 _[L'Ankou](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankou)_ had paid a visit; her mother had come to live with them for months.

Even afterward, miles beyond the collision that had taken half her heart with it, she'd stayed. God only knows why. For the boys, she supposes; they'd loved London as they'd loved her since the day they drew breath, up to and until their father lost his. Even now, they're walking its streets as only men in love can: her eldest strolling in the mild spring sun, her youngest racing the chill of dusk.

She passes through the kitchen with its terracotta tiled floor and pauses to pinch some dead leaves off the herbs on her windowsill. Sage, rosemary, and rue.

England's left its mark on her, too. She'd returned to France—not to the northern beaches she'd roamed as a girl, but to Saint-Paul de Vence in the south—shortly after her youngest began university (Cambridge, much to her secret delight; their father would've frowned, his forehead all dismayed furrows). Her eldest had offered to contribute funds; did she want a secluded villa? _No_ , she'd insisted. A house within the crumbling medieval walls would suffice.

The garden is a breeze-blown kaleidoscope of color, hyacinths and pale pink roses and crocuses so bright they hurt the eyes. These are the shades of her childhood, the scents she remembers. Jonquil, tulip, hellebore; _asphodelus, immortelle, lavande vraie_. She trains a wayward tendril of English ivy back onto its trellis, her weathered fingers mimicking its curl to the sky.

She loves this land as her sons love steel and glass, loves melancholy as fiercely as they love meddling. They haven't fallen far from the tree. _Il n'y a plus d'espoir_.

Love, she'd like to think, is what they've learned from her. 

Love for detail, for truth, for thoroughness. For that which does not rest easy in the soul. For those whose secrets cannot be easily bought. Her eldest always returns alone, and her youngest, when he returns at all, brings trouble beyond bearing. Books, test tubes, and insults. Surreptitious joy.

 _Pas cette fois_ , she thinks, cutting some lilies. Not alone, of course, is what she means; the test tubes—well, those are inevitable. As, she hopes, is the joy that creeps in unbidden, the smiles he can never quite hide. She's seen images of this impossible soldier, grainy surveillance photographs that make her lips twist at the irony of it all and her heart swell with laughter. It's the first of May, and so she waits.

For her sons, _pour le printemps_ , in the village she loves.


End file.
